Cutting, Punching, and Press Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic Salary and Pay

The national wage ladder (BLS OEWS, May 2024)

Percentiles answer the question a single average cannot: where would a given Cutting, Punching, and Press Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic offer sit among all 174,430 workers doing this job? The survey top-codes at $239,200+ and withholds unreliable cells, shown as n/p in the table.

Employment and concentration

BLS counted 174,430 Cutting, Punching, and Press Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic jobs in May 2024, which is 0.11% of all U.S. employment in the survey. Work is most concentrated in Michigan, where the location quotient is 4.38, meaning the occupation holds 4.38 times its national share of local jobs. Michigan employs the most people outright, 21,760 of them, and the three largest state employers together account for 28.0% of the national total.

One in ten workers in this field earns $35,000 or less, and one in ten earns $62,650 or more, so the top-to-bottom ratio is 1.8 to 1 and the annual gap is $27,650. The mean ($47,060) versus median ($45,590) comparison shows a right-skewed ladder where senior and specialist roles lift the average in this occupation.

Pay by state

The state spread for Cutting, Punching, and Press Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic runs from the $53,460 median in West Virginia down through every other publishing state. Employment concentrates in Michigan (21,760 jobs). The complete table:

The occupation in context

Ranked against all 826 published occupations, Cutting, Punching, and Press Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic stands number 182 by employment and number 634 by median pay. Inside its own major group, Production Occupations, the group median wage is $46,020 across 105 detailed occupations, so this occupation pays 1% less than its group median, and it supplies 2.0% of the group's 8,743,430 jobs. In 25 of the 49 states with a published median, the state median beats the national median of $45,590, which is the single best quick test of whether this occupation's pay is set nationally or locally: a high count means local markets regularly outbid the national figure.

Metropolitan areas: where the jobs and the pay sit

Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI is the largest metro employer with 11,320 jobs, 6.5% of the national total. Two rankings follow across the 286 metros BLS publishes for this occupation: where the jobs are, then where the money is, with the pay ranking restricted to metros employing at least 500 people in this occupation to keep small samples out of the lead.

Largest metro employers

Highest-paying metros (500+ jobs)

At the other end, Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL posts the lowest mean pay among metros with at least 500 jobs, $39,970 a year, against $56,960 in Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA. The lowest-paying large metro and the highest are both real markets for this occupation; the difference between them is the geography premium, or penalty, in cash terms.

What the median pay looks like as a budget

The median annual wage of $45,590 works out to $3,799 a month before taxes, $1,753 per biweekly paycheck, and $877 a week. Moving from the 25th percentile ($38,400) to the 75th ($52,150) is worth $13,750 a year, which is the realistic size of the experience and specialization premium inside this occupation. Run the median through the paycheck calculator for a take-home estimate in your state, compare an offer against your current pay with the salary calculator, and check whether a raise actually beats prices with the raise vs inflation calculator.

To place a real offer: a salary of $50,149 would sit between the median ($45,590) and the 75th percentile ($52,150), inside the top half but outside the top quarter of this occupation's ladder. An offer at the 25th percentile, $38,400, is $7,190 under the median, the typical size of the discount attached to entry-level or low-cost-market postings in this field.

Related occupations in Production Occupations

Compare the ladder above with the closest relatives in the survey: Sewing Machine Operators, Mixing and Blending Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Paper Goods Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Cabinetmakers and Bench Carpenters, Grinding, Lapping, Polishing, and Buffing Machine Tool Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic, Slaughterers and Meat Packers. The Careers hub carries the whole branch, group by group.